Global Warming and Desertification (study for quiz)

Global warming and desertification

GLOBAL WARMING

Definition:

The increase in temperature in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Causes:

-      Throw trash

-      Factories release smoke, chemical

-      Vehicles release smoke, poison gas

-      Burning fossil fuels causes he CO2 release into the atmosphere

-      Oil spill, wasting resources and killed sea animals’ habitat.

-      Wasting water by building buildings, swimming pools…

Effects of global warming:

-      Greenhouse effect

-      Climate change

-      Desertification

-      Sea level rises

Possible Solutions:

-      Turn off lights if they are not in use

-      Build swimming pools in our house to avoid dust mix with water so we won’t need to change water frequently.

-      Throw trash in trash bin

-      Recycle

-      Plant trees

Real world example

Polar ice caps melting

1.    Rising in sea levels. There are 5,773,000 cubic miles of water in ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, if all glaciers melted today the seas would rise about 230 feet, but it won’t happen in all at one.

2.    Melting ice caps will throw the global ecosystem out of balance. The icecaps are fresh water, when it melts, it makes the sea water less salty. Some of the steams would cool up the areas around north-east America and Western Europe. But it would stop some of other effects of global warming in that area.

3.    Temperature rising and changing landscapes in the Arctic Circle will endanger several species of animals. Only the most adaptable will survive.

4.    Global warming could snowball with the ice caps gone. Ice caps are white, and reflect sunlight, much of which is reflected back into space, further cooling Earth. If the ice caps melt, the only reflector is the ocean. Darker colors absorb sunlight, further warming the Earth.

Storms and flood

Economy consequences, storm and flood cause do billions of dollars in damage, diseases cost money to treat and control and conflicts. And many people lost there home, their family…

Warmer water and more hurricanes

1.    As the temperature of the ocean rose, the probably of the strong hurricanes will also rose. This happened in 2004-2005

2.    Every time the temperature increase by 5% for every 1*C (1.8 *F) rise in sea surface temperature.

3.    Summer heat warms the ocean’s surface and spurs Evaporation. As heat and moisture rise into atmosphere, billowing cloud, scattered showers, and thunderstorms form.

Spread of disease

When the temperature increases, the virus reproduced more and faster. Some of the insects carry disease back to the north in winter.

     Heat wave

          The deadly heat wave that swept across Europe in 2003, killing an estimated 35,000 people, could be the harbinger of an intense heat trend that scientists began tracking in the early 1900s. Heat waves not only make it seem difficult to body's function, they can be deadly as well. Extreme heat waves are happening two to four times more often now, steadily rising over the last 50 to 100 years, and they re going to be 100 times more likely over the next 40 years.

Vocabulary

-      Greenhouse effect: Observed heat from the Sun and then reradiated back toward

-      Greenhouse gas: Many greenhouse gases occur naturally, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.

-      Fossil issue: Resources that can burn to provide heat, such as coal, oil, petroleum, nature gas…

-      Desertification: The degradation of land when land becomes unproductive because it is affected by erosion, human…

-      Sustainable: Using resources in wasting ways

-      Carbon Dioxide: Oxygen + Compose of Carbon

-      Emissions: Gasses (CO₂) from transportation, factories released and go to the air.

-      Degraded: Reduced in quality and value (in this case, we talk about land become unproductive).

DESERTIFICATION

Definition:

The degradation of land when land becomes unproductive because it is affected by erosion, human…

Causes and Effect:

Human causes:

-      Overgraze: People allow animals to graze in a certain area split by fences without moving away. Animals hooves turn up the soil, make water easy to evaporate by wind.

-      Deforestation: People cut trees down; destroy forest without growing trees again make the land become unfertile.

-      Making wells: Plants can’t grow without water so people making wells to have ground water make the land unable to grow plants.

-      Mismanagement in irrigation: People let water evaporate wastefully which lead to the salinity in soil increase. Salinity in soil make it’s very hard for plants to grow

Natural causes:

-      Deforestations due to natural forest fires.

-      Sand storms sweep soil away, make plants hard to grow.

Possible solutions to desertification:

-      Surrounded plants by rocks to concentrate the amount of dew and keep plants’ moisture.

-      Plants tall trees to block wind because the wind blow soil away and it also blow dews away. Trees make the soil not easy to become arid because it provides water and nutrient into itself and the earth.

-      Use solar cookers to decrease the need of wood to cook.

-      Grow bushes in dunes’ feet to keep dunes stable and reduce the amount of sand blowing away.

A Message From Mother Nature Homework

·         What is the main point of this article?

Weather extremes happen more frequently and stronger. Scientists are wondering do weather extremes have to do with climate change.

·         List four vocabulary words that you do not recognize or understand, lookup the definitions, write them out using your own words. 

Arid (adj.): dry, no rain.

Indicate (v): to point out, to show

Vulnerable (adj.): weak, easily to get hurt

Criticize (v): making judgments, showing disapproval

·         What is the difference between “weather” and “climate”?

Weather is short-term period conditions of the Earth’s atmosphere. Climate is how the atmosphere acts for a long period of time.

·         What are the examples listed in the article of “extreme weather”?

Heat waves, hurricanes, floods…

·         What experiences have you had with “extreme weather”?

I have never experienced with extreme weather but I have seen many people in my country had to deal with floods and hurricanes. People lost their houses, their families…

·         What does the word “perception” mean?

Perception is the way we understand things.

·         What is your “perception” of global climate change?

The climate, long-term weather on all over the Earth is changing. Because people released too much CO₂ therefore the gases are trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere and the sun keeps heating the Earth, make our Earth hotter and hotter every day, the phenomenon of CO₂ gets trapped in the atmosphere called greenhouse effect. Some places in the Earth were originally cold, now it is colder, places were dry now is getting drier » the climate’s change make it very hard for living things to live, the environment is becoming harsh for living things to adapt.

Geography project - Map final assessment

      The Floriana World history

            The Floriana World is a world that faraway from the Earth. It was created by Lady Flora, a goddess. She loved shoes so much that she made her land has a shoe-shape. Lady Flora created many things. One of them was a point; it shows people their location by giving them a series of numbers, according to latitudes and longitude on map of Lady Flora. On the map, latitudes are horizontal lines and longitudes are vertical lines. There were four main directions for fishermen to locate his location: North, South, East and West.

            At the beginning, there were only 2 countries in the Floriana world, the U.S.S and the U.S. Later on, the U.T.N, a new country, was born by religious conflicts between the U.S.S and the U.S. The conflict began when Glasism, a very popular religion was born in a cape faraway down to the Southwest of the Floriana world. It stated that glasses were very important, each family needed to buy glasses because Lady Flora always wore glasses everywhere she came. Glasism spread upward toward the center of the world. But the Glasism missionaries were not always welcomed by the local people every time they went to new place. Some people said they couldn’t afford to buy glasses; some said glasses are old-fashioned and ugly. However, the Flope (who led the religion) wanted to have more followers so he declared that anyone who follows the religion would receive 2kg of rice every month and have free glasses. After the declaration, the situation became more positive; many more people acknowledged the religion and the missionaries’ work went well. Unfortunately, no longer after the declaration, there were rebellions along the religious places. People started to argue which materials they should choose to make glasses, diamond or crystal. There were fights, bloodshed in diamond’s and crystal’s factories. After 20 years of fighting, 2 countries were divided into 3. Therefore, Flope’s office also divided into 3 offices and the power of the religion also decreased. The new country was the U.T.N. Even though 3 countries still didn’t have the same idea in their religion but they still trade with each other for their citizens’ good. People traded bread, fresh fish, coffee beans, grapes, silk, computers, books, shoes, socks, etc… Some people lived near shores moved to cities to find jobs; some people lived near mountains moved to rivers to grow crops. People even moved from their country to another by passports.

            In the Floriana world, people had lots of ways to interact with the environment. Near rivers, they grew crops, farmed; on sea shores they set up fishing villages and caught fish. Water got raw sewage caused water pollution. The need of wood made people deforest, left only three forests left in the world. Besides, the need of materials to make glasses also made people mining diamond and crystal mines. But in the other hand, people also recycle trash, for example, papers have already used by human used to print newspaper.

            Lands in Floriana world were very fertile. There were rivers, lakes, mountains, rainy zone (humid zone), sunny zone (dry zone), mines…etc therefore people had many choices for their jobs. Through hundred of earthquakes on the surface of the world, mountains were formed. In the U.S.S, its capital, Floopy was a great example of fertile land. Floopy was settled on plain, an even and flat topography. Floopy had many advantages in its topography. In Floopy, most of the people chose to grow crops because Floopy located was between two rivers. To the right is big forest, and not faraway to the left was sea port. Another advantage was Floopy was the capital so many people flocked into the city to find jobs. Plus, highway in the U.S.S ran through Floopy so it gave people way to travel, if there are any rivers interrupted the highway, bridges were the most efficient supporters.

            Go along the Southwest coast, this region shared many similar characteristics. 3 sea port were the main economic ports because 3 of them were met the river mouth so it took more people’s attention and the sea ports became wider. Taking the advantage of locating on sea shores, people caught fish, and they trade goods between the U.S.S and The U.T.N. Their jobs were mainly fishers so people mostly found food by fishing. Moreover, depended on the climate, the level of how fertile land was, people also grew crops because the zone was a rainy zone so people always have job to do. Even though the zone spread into 2 countries but people still spoke the same language and they were very religious people.

Study guide for Geography

- Maps:
 What is map?

  +Political Maps: show countries, borders

  +Physical Maps: show physical features of the earth

  +Thematic Maps: show different types of map themes, ex: population, climate, resources, ...

- Culture: characteristic of a nation

  +Food

  +Custom

  +Songs

  +Jobs

  +Clothes

  +Language

- Vocabulary

  +Environment: Physical space around any location

  +Spatial: Something belongs or related to space

  +Location: Exact position based on longitude, latitude

  +Place: Physical and human characteristic

  +Region: An area with similar physical and human characteristics

  +Geography: The study of people, places and environment

- Geography jobs

  +Urban Planner (work with cartographer)

  +Land Surveyor GPS (Global Positioning Satellites)

  +Location Analyst GIS (Geographic Information System)

  +Climatologist (Irrigation system)

-  5 themes of Geography

  +Human / Environment interaction

  +Movement

  +Region

  +Place

  +Location

-  6 essential elements

  +Spatial Terms

  +Places and regions

  +Physical systems

  +Human systems

  +Uses of Geography

  +Environment and Society

Something I have learned during the 'family tree project'

            I have studied in AIS for 2 years already and I have many friends there. Even though, we have known each other for quite long but we don’t really understand each other deeply. It makes a lot easier to know about our friends through this project, ‘Family tree’.

            I realized that in my class, there are some of my classmates from different cultures and backgrounds, for examples, Taiwan, Japan, Russia, or China. Through Selena, I discovered Taiwanese food, fiba, a kind of peanuts and they eat them in New Year days. We tried the peanuts and they were really good. Through Minami, I discovered in Japan, people traveled mostly by trains and cars. Ivy’s family was accused of being a traitor in Viet Nam and was banished to Russia, but finally, the government have found out that her family didn’t do anything wrong. During the time living in Russia, Ivy knew some of Russian food like the Russian yogurt she let me try. The Yogurt is made of watery yogurt, milk and sugar. She has to wait until the Yogurt go ferment, and then it is finish. There are some others stories about other friends of mine like the one who comes from China. In the past, Chinese women bind their feet to show the society that they are wealthy. This custom began in the 10^th century and ending in the first half of 20^th century. Because their feet were small so they can’t do anything, therefore, they mostly relied on their servants.

            About myself, during the process of doing this project, I also found out that my grandfather in my father’s side was a very good student, or in my dad’s word, an excellent student in his school back in 60 years. He wanted to do something to help his country, which was at war with America, so he taught people how to read and write. Looking back at the pictures were taken when I was young, it is very interesting to know that my brother and I are very similar, for examples our eyes, we both have curly eyelashes, our skin are both white, we are skinny and thin, both of us are naughty children.

I think it is quite strange because now, I still can find some new things about my family. For me, it’s good to have an exercise to introduce about our history because we can discover something we haven’t known about ourselves.